ONE ON ONE: Jason Silva On The Power Of Ideas

Katherine Keating
The WorldPost

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"If Aristotle was alive today, he would be spitting his philosophical rifts onto his YouTube page," said Jason Silva. "As a student of philosophy, I refer to the greats: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Descartes. But what of our modern day philosophers?"

Enter Jason Silva, a performance philosopher and futurist, known as the "Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age." Silva has the same access to knowledge as any one of us. He can read Steven Johnson's books or Plato's "Republic," but Silva is a young YouTube phenomenon who is making a point of exploring philosophy in an entirely new way, taking advantage of tools we all have but at the same time crave. He uses the power of creativity to express his ideas, chasing the unexpected predictability of the YouTube culture by creating quite incredible videos that captivate people's attention. This is what a contemporary audience is looking for: get the zeitgeist of what's going on and express it through a social media culture.

He creates content that is accessible to anyone. He correlates information -- M&M's of knowledge -- and puts it together in a palatable format.

“Ideas are powerful because they allow us to see the world as it could be, rather than what it is,” said Silva. "Today, ideas take the form of information files, binary bits, 1’s and 0’s. We create media and launch it into the world, capable of instant consumption and real impact."